Around the World in 80 Books

To celebrate the one-year anniversary of our World Eco-fiction Series, I present "Around the World in 80 Books: A Guide to Ecological and Climate Themes in Fiction," an article at Medium.com. Themes include harsh survival, advocacy, veneration of the world around us, the slow apocalypse, the haunted, the weird, and the psychological. It's an eclectic and diverse range of stories, set around the world, on every continent. Also, Dragonfly is blending the original spotlight on climate change authors with the newer world fiction series, now that these similar author spotlights are on the same domain.

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The Book of Dog, Lark Benobi

t’s the night of the Yellow Puff-Ball Mushroom Cloud and a mysterious yellow fog is making its way across the world, sowing chaos in its path. Mt. Fuji has erupted. The Euphrates has run dry. In America the White House is under attack by giant bears, the President is missing, and the Vice President has turned into a Bichon Frise. It’s Apocalypse Time, my friends. Soon the Beast will rise. And six unlikely women must make the perilous journey to the Pit of Nethalem, where they will stop the Beast from fulfilling its evil purpose, or die trying. The Book of Dog is a novel of startling originality: a tale of female friendship, politics, religion, demon possession, motherhood, love, betrayal, and occasional apocalypse. It’s a contemporary Candide with a dollop of Animal Farm and a dash of Metamorphosis thrown in. It wryly explores how even the most insignificant and powerless of people, when working together, can change the world.

It’s the night of the Yellow Puff-Ball Mushroom Cloud and a mysterious yellow fog is making its way across the world, sowing chaos in its path. Mt. Fuji has erupted. The Euphrates has run dry. In America the White House is under attack by giant bears, the President is missing, and the Vice President has turned into a Bichon Frise. It’s Apocalypse Time, my friends. Soon the Beast will rise. And six unlikely women must make the perilous journey to the Pit of Nethalem, where they will stop the Beast from fulfilling its evil purpose, or die trying.

The Book of Dog is a novel of startling originality: a tale of female friendship, politics, religion, demon possession, motherhood, love, betrayal, and occasional apocalypse. It’s a contemporary Candide with a dollop of Animal Farm and a dash of Metamorphosis thrown in. It wryly explores how even the most insignificant and powerless of people, when working together, can change the world.

Quotes

Ursula Le Guin is so important, because she pushed the idea that science fiction, or speculative fiction, can be a space for being really thoughtful, and for really exploring ideas. And also for daring to imagine a version of us that is better—and, in some ways, worse—than our present selves. I think she was unmatched. She was a great novelist, and a great evangelist for the novel. Earthsea is a huge influence, as is The Dispossessed. –Marlon James